Feature image: Lydia Olivier leads a USGBC Los Angeles Green Schools Committee event at MyGBCE 2022 at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. Photo courtesy of Lydia Olivier (supplied by USGBC Los Angeles).

As one of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, climate action entails taking “urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” be it through integrating climate change measures into plans and policies or enhancing education on climate mitigation and adaptation.

Two LEED professionals are on the front lines of climate action, extending their efforts into their communities and steering initiatives that could impact the climate future of those communities. They share how they’re partnering with local organizations to foster environmental justice and encourage climate action.

Finding and forging connections to further environmental justice

LEED AP BD+C, architect and former USGBC Los Angeles intern Lydia Olivier wears many hats. At the University of California, Riverside (UCR), she’s a Ph.D. student in anthropology and a UC3 Environmental Justice Climate Planning Fellow. She’s also an avid volunteer, wife and mom.

When her kids started school, Olivier wanted to instill in them a sense of connection to the environment—something she experienced during her childhood in Morocco, where her family was part of the Peace Corps. “I went to a school that had a working farm on it,” she says. “There was also a silkworm farm where we were able to see their whole life cycle—from crawling as caterpillars to their metamorphosis into moths.”

Olivier envisaged the same experience for her kids, so she teamed up with other parents to convert a portion of the asphalt schoolyard into a garden, starting with 1,500 square feet, then later expanding into 20,000 square feet—8,000 of which became a working farm with an educational aspect.

Two women and three children in a school garden and field area. — Lydia Olivier participates in a garden activity for students at Wilshire Crest Elementary, LAUSD, in 2017. Photo courtesy of Lydia Olivier.

“That was my vision because, as an architect, I found there was a great disconnect between architecture and the environment and what people were doing within that,” she says. “It got me thinking about how we can influence the youngest population, so when they grow up, it’s easy for them to think of what sustainability looks like.”

Venturing beyond her kids’ school garden, Olivier now serves as the board chair of the Garden School Foundation, which provides garden-based education to students at Title I elementary schools across Los Angeles. “The organization has an in-depth education component to teach kids everything about gardening and where your food comes from—starting with growing seeds to composting and nutrition—which all goes back to climate change,” she says.

Her work at the Garden School Foundation also ties in with her doctoral degree. As a Ph.D. student in anthropology, Olivier studies the human component of sustainability. “Specifically, I’m zeroing in on children and looking at their connections with the world. All their senses are at their peak, and they see things we don’t,” she says.

Meanwhile, as an Environmental Justice Climate Planning Fellow, Olivier is creating a climate action plan for UCR, with environmental justice ingrained in it. “This is not an easy quest, because it’s never been done before,” she says. She’s up for the challenge, though, putting into practice what she learned upon earning her master’s degree in regenerative studies at California Polytechnic State University, Pomona. “It involves systems thinking, where you look at systems and see connections,” says Olivier.

A woman and three colleagues smile at the camera in a conference event space. — Lydia Olivier with USGBC Los Angeles crew at the Sustainability Fundamentals Workshop for the Future Green Leaders Summit 2023 at the L.A. Convention Center, where she gave a presentation to 300 middle school students. Photo courtesy of Lydia Olivier (supplied by USGBC Los Angeles).

A memorable and tangible instance of this “light bulb moment” of connection came to Olivier in a meeting with the diversity council at UCR. “The LGBT committee were talking about problems with crime and policing at night and having to escort students at sundown when they needed to get to their cars,” she says. “I started making a connection with the climate action plan, because one of the mitigations we’re looking at is upgrading lighting. A lot of the lighting we have is too bright, which could then produce these dark areas where crime can occur. I can see where we can get together and talk about where the bright and dark spaces are around campus, and that will influence the climate action plan in terms of upgrading to LED lighting.”

The opportunity to create and cultivate connections that promote environmental justice is the driving force in all of Olivier’s roles—be it a student, a fellow, a board chair, a mom or an architect. “I like to be able to put connections together and tap into those connections to advance environmental justice,” she says. “That, to me, is what I find most fulfilling.”

Empowering people to take climate action

LEED Fellow and LEED AP BD+C Jeremy Knoll has always been passionate about climate change. As the director of sustainability and regenerative design at Kansas City-based architecture firm BNIM, Knoll guides project teams across the firm to take climate action—be it through setting sustainability standards and devising ways to achieve them, working with clients to develop a decarbonization plan for their buildings, or defining small, actionable steps that will enable the firm to fulfill its commitments to achieving a carbon-neutral, net zero emissions and net zero energy future.

Knoll’s journey to climate action began during his childhood, when his family regularly visited a state park in northwest Missouri. “We’d stay in a little cabin nearby, and we would get up at dawn and drive around to see the bald eagles, deer, muskrats—all of the life in this space,” he says. When the Great Flood of 1993 destroyed the park, he was devastated, yet he saw how engineers and other volunteer groups worked to restore the area. “That was the first example to me that humans are capable of being part of a solution to climate disasters.”

A man, a woman and two children smile at the camera while in the woods. — Jeremy Knoll with family on a hike. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Knoll.

As an architecture major in college, Knoll took an urban planning class that entailed fieldwork in neighborhoods. “We talked to people and got to know a place before we recommended any kind of intervention or change,” he says. “We learned the process of public engagement and became trained on how to listen.”

This training in public interest design coupled with a zeal for climate action is what Knoll carried over and wove into his role at BNIM, as well as his advocacy work as president of Climate Action KC, a regional collaborative to create a more equitable, healthy and resilient Kansas City region.

“I got excited about the idea of a network focused on top-down resourcing for bottom-up solutions,” he says. “We’re working collectively to make a just transition and using the power of the organization to create a larger framework so that individuals within cities and municipalities have a clearer picture of where they belong in creating solutions that will benefit and include everybody.”

One of Climate Action KC’s pillar programs is its annual summit, a gathering of elected officials, city and municipal staff, climate experts and professionals, students, and members of the public who want to be heard and make a difference. “The focus is on creating space for dialogue, so we’re developing real solutions and making people feel empowered to act, and for policymakers to gain an understanding of the kinds of policies that would do the most good, based on feedback from the public and technical experts,” says Knoll.

Four coworkers wearing badges smile at the camera at a social event. — Four MLAB chairs and past chairs for the USGBC Central Plains community. Left to right: Erika Winters-Downey, Mike Gillaspie, Jeremy Knoll and Sara Greenwood. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Knoll.

Climate Action KC is also working on two other programs: Kansas City’s Building Energy Exchange and Plug in KC. Through the Building Energy Exchange, Knoll says the organization hopes to empower residents to improve their energy and carbon future, as well as create resources for developers on their net zero performance path.

Meanwhile, the Plug in KC program, which Knoll says will likely be up and running by the end of the year, will tackle the electrification of mobility in Kansas City, addressing the International Urban and Regional Cooperation thematic cluster of mobility and transport geared toward technology and policies for emissions reduction and energy efficiency in transportation. “Part of the program involves demonstrating and creating the market power to get electric vehicles into the community and make sure we have the infrastructure to handle them,” says Knoll.

For architecture and engineering professionals looking to partner with local organizations for climate action, Knoll offers this advice: “Listen to what your communities are saying, and use your knowledge to help shine a light on what levers and dials are in their reach so they understand that whatever scale they want to take action at, there is an action for them to take.”

LEED professionals partner with local organizations to expand climate justice